The name "El Lechero" means "The milk man". A friend gave me that nickname to poke fun at my last name. Whenever he called me "El Lechero" I would respond with "That's Senor Lechero to you", and thus a legend was born, if only in my own mind.
I intend to blog about politics, religion and family. My career, my hobbies of racing off-road, surfing, doing things with my family, my love for my wife, and what Jesus Christ did on the cross, will most likely work their way into my posts.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Why is the truth kept hidden?

Clyrinda and I attended a conference for married couples this weekend. During one of the breaks we sat down for lunch with another couple, who we know from church yet do not know well. As we ate and chatted the issue of war and President Bush came up. I understand that you all don't know Clyrinda, but let me give a hint as to her political persuasion...............if there is the slightest hint of anti-war or anti-Bush attitude within the range of her voice, she will jump at the chance to challenge that attitude. The husband of this couple mentioned that "things were so bad", and this Iraq thing was "making everything worse", and perhaps another small thing or two along those lines. I kept my mouth firmly wrapped around my sandwich waiting for the moments to pass so we could discuss other issues. Clyrinda had a different, but just as kind, approach. She asked "What would you have the President do?"

Pretty simple question, but I never expected such a simple answer. "Bring all the troops home now" the man said. Now since simple was the talk, I chimed in with "They don't want to come home". Our anti-war friend looked at me with stunned disbelief and did not say another word. I'm sure the idea that marines, sailors, soldiers and airmen on the ground in Iraq actually want finish what they started never occured to him.

How do people come to be so uninformed? (Shawn, if you read this I truly do not mean to insult you)

The misinformation about the Iraq war is astounding, yet passes off as fact. I couldn't begin to count the number of times I've heard "Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda", and yet there are dozens of documented and undisputed instances of very real ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

The book Shadow War, by Richard Miniter, lists the undisputed facts which tie Iraq to al Qaeda in Apendix D of the book. I will list a few .

* "Abdul Rahman Yasin was the only member of the al Qaeda cell that detonated the 1993 World Trade Center bomb to remain at large int he Clinton years. He fled to Iraq. US forces recently discovered a cache of documents in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, that show that Iraq gave Yasin both a house and monthly salary"

* "In October 2000, another Iraqi intelligence operative, Salah Suleiman, was arrested near the Afghan border by Pakistani authorities, according to Jane's Foreign Report, a respected international newsletter. Jane's reported that Suleiman was shuttling between Iraqi intelligence and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, now al Qaeda's number two man."

* "Spanish investigators have uncovered documents seized from Yusuf Galan -who is charged by a Spanish court with being "directly ivolved with the preparation and planning" of the September 11 attacks- that show the terrorist was invited to a party at the Iraqi embassy in Madrid. The invitation used his "al Qaeda nom de guerre," London's Independent reports.

* "An Iraqi defector to Turkey, known by his cover name as 'Abu Mohammed', told Gwynne Roberts of the Sunday Times of London that he saw bin Laden's fighters in camps in Iraq in 1997. At the time, Mohammed was a colonel in Saddam's fedayeen. He described an encounter at Salman Pak, the training facility southesast of Baghdad. At that vast compound run by Iraqi intelligence, Muslim militants trained to hijack planes with knives-on a full sized Boeing 707. Col. Mohammed recalls his first visit to Salman Pak this way: "We were met by Colonel Jamil Kamil, the camp manager, and Major Ali Hawas. I noticed that a lot of people were queuing for food. (The Major) said to me: "You'll have nothing to do with these people. They are Osama bin Laden's group and the PKK and Mojahedin-e Khalq."

And here is perhaps the best of them all.........

* "Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi oversaw an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, Secretary Powell told the United Nations. His specialty was poisons. Wounded in fighting with the US forces, he sought medical treatment in Baghdad in May, 2002. When al-Zarqawi recovered, he restarted a training camp in northern Iraq. Al-Zarqawi's cell was later tied to the October 2002 murder of Lawrence Foley, an official of the US Agency for International Development, in Amman, Jordan. The captured assassin confessed that he recieved orders and funds from Zarqawi's cell in Iraq, Secretary Powell said. His accomplice escaped to Iraq.

None of these undisputed facts are known by the average person, who assumes the media reports of "No Ties" are correct. Why is that? The point of the book is that President Bush would rather win the GWOT (global war on terror) than win re-election so he downplayed the successes in the war. But these are well known facts (there are about 20 more in the book) so why do the anti war forces still succeed in their claims? Since Bush already won re-election, the answer must be that he still wants to win the war.

But nobody asked me to lay low and keep quiet, so I'm talking. Iraq was a major supporter of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and needed to be taken out, as did the war making capabilities of Iraq.

3 Comments:

You question "How do people come to be so uninformed?" I think you already know the answer to that if you watch the news and read the paper...It's that simple. People who have no direct ties, such as a friend or family member in some branch of the Sevice, only have the information that the media hands out. If that information is incorrect or skewed, then that's what people learn and believe. How do we know what IS the truth and what is NOT if we have no frame of reference? I would pray to God that MOST people who say "bring our troops home" are truly saying that from the heart because they don't want harm to come to any more Americans, not because they are "anti-war" and as you stated, don't know that the troops don't want to come home until they finish the job. OF COURSE that would not occur to the "uninformed"...why would it? Why would anyone think that anyone else would WANT to be in such a place, a place where you are never safe? God Bless those who do, as these are obviously the men and women of our Armed Forces. It might sound like I disagree with what you said but, that is not the case. I'm simply trying to explain the uninformed standpoint as you are not in that position. Thank you and the others who are helping tell the true stories.

LoraYours are very thoughtful and good comments. You are correct, I think I do know the answer to my own question, but still find myself shaking my head.

Only the most vile person would want more people killed in that war (Americans or Iraqis). But consider the magnitued of sacrifices made (in terms of persons killed) for any great cause in history.........Thousands during the American Revolution........half a million during the civil war......millions during WW2........What sacrifice should be made to keep terrorists on their heels, fighting in their own lands and not here on ours?

"What sacrifices should be made..." I read this sentence over and over and as the tears started to fall from my eyes, I realized that I have no answer to that...I only know that it makes my heart ache and I wish somehow the sacrifices would become unnecessary. I know that is not the reality of the situation. The evil must be eradicated or no one will be safe. Why are there such people in this world who are so evil that they can commit such atrocities!

I am blessed and PROUD to be an American and words cannot express the feelings I have as the realization continues to set in about the sacrifices that are made to protect our country.

As I'm sure you will continue to shake your head, please continue to inform the uninformed as some of us are willing to listen... :)